


All Your Waves And Breakers

by Sharksdontsleep



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Foster Care, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharksdontsleep/pseuds/Sharksdontsleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has become a routine. Alex gets two drugstore bags from the stash in the kitchen, doubling them up. Into them, he puts his second-best notebook, a few pens he's found on classroom floors, a paperback he borrowed from a library a couple of houses ago and never got the chance to return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trying my hand at posting a work in progress. Feedback including constructive criticism welcome here or via tumblr (dontsleepsharks). Title from the book of Jonah. This touches on issues of child neglect, and is rated teen for language.

"Get your shit and c'mon," James says.

This has become a routine. Alex gets two drugstore bags from the stash in the kitchen, doubling them up. Into them, he puts his second-best notebook, a few pens he's found on classroom floors, a paperback he borrowed from a library a couple of houses ago and never got the chance to return.

Clothes go on in layers - it's harder for some adult to take them and not bring them back when he’s wearing them, or for them to get left in someone's office or car or on the bus that way. It's still warm enough in mid-October that he starts sweating, but he's _learned_ , and he's not giving them up again. It makes him look bigger than he is, pants on over pajamas, maybe less like the half-starved kid families are afraid to take in, fearing his getting their kids sick, and more like someone that could -

"You coming or what?" James has his stuff together already. He's waiting impatiently in the doorway, foot tapping.

Alex gathers his student ID, his library card, the bent-up color copy of his passport, white creases over his face, the few bucks he managed to squirrel away, his best notebook, and puts one in each of his pockets. Harder to lose everything all at once. Harder to have it taken from him.

He looks at his bunk - the blankets aren't his, nor is the limp pillow or the posters on the wall or any of it. They'd had six good months there, but their case worker had gotten _that_ look on the last visit, and Alex had known a move was coming. Better than the one before -

"She's waiting on us," James says, and doesn't help Alex carry his stuff, meager as it is.

Their caseworker, Ms. Knox, is waiting on the front step. "Got everything?" she asks, but doesn't wait for them to answer. They trail her out, and Alex fixes his eyes on the houses across the street, each with its neat porch and narrow strip of yard.

He doesn't squeeze his eyes shut, not when Ms. Knox smiles to the resource officer and shepherds James and Alexander into a police cruiser. It's better than the bus, even if he hits his knees on the rigid seat in front of them getting in. Sitting back in the seat, his feet don't touch the floor.

He doesn't ask where they're going. It could be across town or as far over as the next county. Brothers are hard to place together. As little as James and he have in common, he hopes they aren't separated.

"Gonna be a minute," the officer says, turning around. "You boys want me to run the siren?" he asks, like it'll be some kind of treat for them. He's got a 'School Resource Officer' badge on, and seems friendly enough, even if he probably thinks Alex is younger than he is.

"No," Alex says. "No, thank you."

He shrugs and turns back to the caseworker, talking about something Alex can't hear. They drive for a while, and it's a high clear day in October, the suburbs of one town in New Jersey giving way to another. Alex rests his head on the cool window, and does not sleep.

The new house looks a lot like the old one, too many kids for the space, small but clean. Ms. Knox leads them up to bunk beds - and there are several sets. "You can leave your things," she says, but neither boy makes a move to put their belongings down. Who knows what they'll come back to?

The Lyttons seem nice enough when he meets them, but he's suspicious of anyone who has this many kids - it comes with that many checks, and Alex wonders which the Lyttons are more interested in collecting.

Dinner is done assembly-line style, nothing fancier than pasta in orange cheese sauce, but no one says anything when Alex takes seconds, and it's decent enough. He leaves his stuff for a minute - the bagged notebook and pens - under his chair. When he comes back, no one has gone through it. Or they have and haven't taken anything.

There are a few other kids, most of whom eye James warily. He's as big for his age as Alex is small, big hands and feet that speak to getting even bigger. He's gotten the voc-tech track the last few schools they've been in, and Alex understands if the other kids are slow to warm. He would be too.

James doesn’t notice, or doesn’t give any indication that he has noticed, and shovels food into his mouth until Mrs. Lytton gives him a look - maybe disbelieving at how much he’s eating. Regret, perhaps, at taking in a mouth to feed that eats that much.

Each kid washes their plate in turn at the sink, and James and Alex go last. There’s an order to it, bio-kids first, then a kid who only seems to be sticking around for dinner, a neighbor perhaps - then the fosters, the younger girls first, then the two youngest boys, then the oldest girl who motions at Alex that he can go as well. 

“There are towels in that drawer,” she says, motioning to the drawer next to the sink. “Hang ‘em up when you’re done.” She doesn’t stay to make sure he does. 

After dinner, there’s prayers or at least an imitation of them, Alex and James sitting cross-legged on the carpet in a circle with the other kids, and listening to Mr. Lytton read passages from what must be a children’s bible. 

It’s enough to set Alex’s teeth on edge - not the praying itself, but the dumbed-down language. It’s dull, and he thinks about what school tomorrow will be like, if the other home will actually bring his textbooks back, if anyone at his old school had known him well enough to miss him. It was the end of the first quarter, and there’s no guarantee his grades will transfer over to his new school, if he can even enroll in the same courses.

Mr. Lytton must notice his mind wandering, because he pauses and gives Alex a pointed look. “Alex,” he asks. “What do you think is meant when Jonah is cast into the sea?”

“He defied God,” Alex says. “And he was being punished for it. So, he was cast out and a fish or a whale ate him, depending on the translation.”

“God has a way of giving second chances,” Mr. Lytton says. “Sometimes, when we feel the most lost, we can -”

“He should have defied God, though. God wanted him to curse a city, and he wouldn’t do it,” Alex interrupts. And it’s so easy, what Mr. Lytton is going for. They’re all at sea, all of them, and he’s telling them to have faith, to pray. As if they haven’t been swallowed up already. 

“Now, that’s one way of -”

“He _shouldn’t_ have cursed the city. What kind of God does that and then punishes someone for -” Alex can feel the blood pounding in his face now. He’s half-sitting half-standing, like he’d go toe-to-toe with Mr. Lytton, given the chance.

The other kids are looking at him like he’s lost his mind, and maybe he has. ‘Don’t talk back,’ is pretty much the first rule of being a foster, and James, quiet, plodding James, who never remembers anything, can remember that. 

“Alexander,” Mr. Lytton says, and his voice is firm. He doesn’t raise a hand, though. Maybe he’s not a hitter. Or maybe not where the others will see. The door to their bedroom had had its lock disabled, bolt and mechanism taken out completely. Alex had checked. 

James tugs on his arm, and the older girl is giving him a death glare that says to sit down, and it takes a minute, a few heaved breaths, before he can. Mr. Lytton picks up the bible again, and continues.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the girl says, later. She tells Alex her name, but it’s not a real name. Her eyes flick up as if she’s thinking about it for a second too long. It doesn’t matter. He probably won’t be here long enough for it to matter. “Only makes that go on longer.” 

“Sorry,” Alex says, though he’s not sorry, not really. 

She frowns at him. She doesn’t ask where he’s from - most kids tease him for his accent, the way his vowels don’t go flat as theirs - or ask if James and he are actually brothers and not just saying they are, or what their previous homes were like. “It’s OK here,” she says, finally, as if that’s the only question worth answering, even if he didn’t ask it. 

“Yeah,” he says, digging at the carpet with his sock. “Fair enough.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School, and a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try for updates twice a week. Feedback appreciated here or at dontsleepsharks at tumblr.

Things with the Lyttons go OK until they don’t. He’s put in the regular track at school. It’s not terrible, but it’s not interesting, either. He reads the entirety of To Kill a Mockingbird in English when they’re only supposed to have read the first few chapters - he annotates on Post-Its the teacher gives him, even though most kids bring their own packs - and when he runs out of room on those, he puts the annotations in his notebook and specifies page numbers. 

Ms. Livingstone says they’ll be doing some kind of Socratic seminar or debate or something, though she hasn’t given them any of the prompts. She seems a little taken aback when he shows her the book, now fat with Post-Its and probably more dog-eared than he should be doing to a school book. 

“Sorry,” he says, reflexively, though he’s not, and she doesn’t seem to react as if he is. 

“You have the first lunch block?” she asks.

He does. There’s a split lunch, and James and the other Lytton kids have other lunch sections. She writes him a pass on a form, and tells him to come by with his lunch. 

He waits in the cafeteria line for about half the period, and then eats walking in the hall to her room. The hallway isn’t clear of students; some meander by, hall passes tucked under their arms as they text. Others don’t appear to have passes, but wave to the security guard who calls them by name. 

In the cafeteria, they’d made him take a carton of milk - which he can’t drink, but James can - and a pack of carrots, both of which he stashes in his backpack. There’d been breakfast that morning, and there’s snack, though the cafeteria ladies call it ‘supper,’ before the buses come for the kids who have to wait extra time for them. 

He’d put away a stash of things at the Lyttons’, a breakfast muffin whose expiration date is next year; a granola bar in a thick wrapper to keep out bugs. The carrots can’t go there - they’ll rot - but he can probably save some of their ‘supper,’ which most often comes with packets of crackers. Those just get stale after a while, but there’s worse things. 

Ms. Livingstone is seated at one of the student desks, eating a sandwich in one hand and grading with the other, bobbing her head to something player over her headphones. Alex has to clear his throat a few times to get her attention, and she removes the white earbuds from her ears.

“Glad you could make it,” she says, looking at the clock above the door. 

He’s late, maybe - the pass didn’t specify - or maybe she’s just worried about the next class coming in. 

“I wanted to talk to you about ...” The desks are arranged in quads, and she motions to the seat across from her. He sits.

She takes a bite of her sandwich, chewing, before shutting her computer and tucking her papers back into a stack, securing them with a large clip. “About the book, I mean.”

“You want to make sure I read it?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Did you?”

“Yes, of course,” Alex says, and he can feel himself getting mad not at the teacher, per se, but at the _idea_ that he’s lying about -

“So,” she says, mildly. “Tell me about it, then.”

They talk about the book - well, mostly he talks and she nods and glances at the clock a few times, but seems to be listening. She asks him about the plot, what Dolphus Raymond was drinking from his bag - “Coca-Cola,” he says, moving on to the next question - what Boo Radley represented, what the story would be like if it weren’t from Scout’s perspective. 

The last one makes him pause, before he says, “You wouldn’t want to tell it from Atticus’ point of view.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“He’s … you can’t let the hero tell the story. It’s boring. Or, it can be anyway.”

“Wouldn’t that let you inside his mind better?”

Alex thinks. “No,” he says. “You can see him struggling without it. You don’t need to hear his thoughts - and there’s so much going on that Scout can see because people discount her. Adults, they’ll say sh- say things, rather, around kids. They don’t know what kids can observe.”

She smiles at that. “A good point. I think this is enough for today. I’m going to talk with the counselor. See if they can move you into my accelerated class. Do you know if you’ve had Access testing?”

Alex shakes his head.

“It’s for students who don’t speak English as their first language.”

“I can _speak_ English,” he says. “And read. And write -”

“I’ll check. It’s sometimes required before we shift your schedule, just to make sure your written English is as good as your spoken English. Regardless, I’ll give you an essay prompt tomorrow during class discussion. You can do it in class or I can arrange for another room if that’ll be too noisy -”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Here’s fine, I’m mean.”

“Good,” she says. “That’s settled.” She picks up the remainder of her sandwich. “You can stay here for the remainder of lunch or I can write you a pass back to the cafeteria. Period’s ending in about five minutes, anyway.” 

“I’m OK,” he says. He spends the rest of lunch watching her eat her sandwich, as she goes around the room, straightening things, untipping a tipped-over set of books, retrieving various dropped items from the floor.

“There’s a free pen by your feet if you want it,” she says. 

He reaches down. It’s a half-used clear Bic, chewed at the end, but he pockets it anyway. “Thanks.”

 

He goes to his next class; it’s geometry, and they’re doing proofs, which all the other kids seem to hate, but it’s a lot more interesting than triangles or whatever they were learning on his first day. At least no one seems to care that he doesn’t sound like the rest of them when he’s talking about postulates and theorems, as if he can’t think properly because he sounds like - 

“Psst,” comes a voice from a student behind him. “Number six. What’d you get? I got that they weren’t congruent, but I’m not really sure why.” 

Alex turns. They’re supposed to be working independently, but Mr. Knox hadn’t moved the pointer on the behavior chart on the wall away from ‘elbow partners’ where it’d been for their ‘do now,’ so he probably won’t care if they’re talking about the work.

“Yeah,” he says. “Got that too. Uh, here.” He turns his desk, which slides easily against the floor - there are cut-up tennis balls on its feet so it doesn’t scuff the tiles - until they’re facing one another. He takes a minute to look at the other boy and nearly does a double-take.

“You really didn’t notice? Nya’s been asking who my brother was for three days. She says we look ‘smack alike.’” He makes little quote marks with his fingers. “Where’re you from?”

Alex stares at him for a second. They do look alike, same dark hair, same eyes, though the other boy, whose paper reads ‘Ned,’ is darker, tanned deepest at his hands and fading to the same shade as Alex near his T-shirt sleeve. 

“Jersey,” Alex says. 

Ned seems to take this in stride. “How’d you get that for this one?”

They work side-by-side until it’s time to discuss the questions as a class. Mr. Knox draws a popsicle stick from the ‘participation jar.’ He hasn’t called Alex’s name that way once - maybe Alex is a late add and hasn’t merited a popsicle stick. Or maybe it’s because the teacher already goes, “Yes, Alex, but I want to see if other people know,” when he raises his hand more than twice in the same five minutes. 

“Ned, for number 6, Nya says the angles aren’t congruent. Do you agree?”

“Yep,” Ned answers.

“How do you know?”

Ned smiles. “As my boy Alex here explained, angle A is complementary to B, and B and C are congruent, therefore A and D should be congruent and D and E are complementary, and A and E aren’t congruent.” He says it easy, like he hadn’t been puzzling over it a minute ago. Still, Alex’s face flushes hot, a different kind of feeling than when he gives the answer himself. 

The teacher nods. “Nya,” he asks. “Do you agree with Ned’s reasoning?”

Class goes on like that, jumping around, and Alex watches as his classmates answer. A few kids doodle, and one girl spends most of her time looking out the window, though she provides the right answer after the teacher repeats the question. It’s _good_ , good in a way he can’t quite put a name to.

After class, Ned lingers near the doorway. “What’s your next class?” he asks. 

“History. It’s in the new wing.” 

“Cool, I’m going to art.”

They walk together, dodging out of the way of the kids from second lunch spilling out of the cafeteria, the sixth graders who manage to get underfoot, the high school kids who take courses in the middle school wing barreling down the hall. 

Ned doesn’t say much - the hall’s too noisy - but he pauses when Alex gets to history like he’s dropping him off. “There’s a -” he starts to say, but the bell rings, and Alex has to hustle to get his seat in class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ned Stevens was Hamilton's friend in St. Croix. I'll let Chernow tell it. "Of the five Stevens children, Edward, born a year before Alexander, became his closest friend, “an intimate acquaintance begun in early youth,” as Hamilton described their relationship. As they matured, they often seemed to display parallel personalities. Both were exceedingly quick and clever, disciplined and persevering, fluent in French, versed in classical history, outraged by slavery, and mesmerized by medicine." They also looked so alike that it's rumored that Stevens' father was actually Hamilton's biological father.


End file.
